We briefed Makhan Chor as a warm single-vignette, the way a Cheriyal balladeer would freeze the funniest beat of the butter-thief leela: Krishna up on a friend's shoulders, hand already in the pot, Yashoda arriving a half-second too late. The hut interior gathers the whole household into one frame — the human ladder of boys, the mother with her raised stick, the calf getting its share of curd at the side, the broken pot spilling white across the floor. We kept the fill medium so the red ground breathes around the scramble, and let blue Krishna and the white butter do the colour work flat against the vermilion, the old Nakashi way. The spilt curd is the detail that tells you he has done this before.